We had another power failure this morning. It started at about 5:30 am and continued until about 8:00 am, just as I was (manually) closing the garage door to go to work.
Unfortunately, my web server (which delivers this wonderful blog) failed to restart correctly when the power came back up. It seems prone to forgetting how to connect to the network after a power failure…anyway, when I got home from work I was beat and plunked myself in front of the TV. The result- I didn’t even know the server was down until just now.
I’m obviously totally out of it…I’ve missed the train, the ship has sailed and I’m not on it, and whatever other cliches you might wish to add that describe someone who is oblivious to popular trends.
I remember my bike when I was a kid. Adding sound to it was a special art: the right kind of card or piece of cardboard, an appropriate clothes-line clip or other attachment device…it was tres chic.
I just changed out of my pajamas and put on my normal day wear. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I realized that there really wasn’t a significant difference between these two modes of dress.
I was a reasonably well-dressed man less than a decade ago. No, never really stylish, but I was at least a step or so above “slob”. I had three modes of dress:
Work: I had three or four good suits: tailored, from a reputable suit store. A decent collection of tailored cotton shirts. Some nice ties: when I went to the office, I was typically wearing over $1,000 worth of clothing, and I bought at least one new suit each year
Home/casual: Cargo pants, cotton tourist slacks, a pair or two of jeans and golf shirts; I even had a couple of pairs of Tilley pants
Rough/yard: a few pairs of sweat pants and T-shirts for working in the yard, washing the car, what have you
I the last seven years I’ve significantly simplified my life. I have my “work/social” clothing, which is basically the “home/casual” category above, and everything else is in the “rough/yard” category. I’ve gone from budgeting $2,000 a year for new clothes at my peak of sartorial excellence to probably spending $150 a year. My suit trousers are so far from fitting that I really have no idea why I keep them any longer. So if I’m relaxing at home, going to the store, going to the park, or generally doing anything other than going to dinner or visiting with the family, I wear sweat pants and a T-shirt. If you drop in unexpectedly or come to stay in my house for a few days, that’s the way you’ll see me: sweat pants and a T-shirt.
But what I do is one thing- trying to figure out why is another matter entirely…
I generally have a lot of respect for police officers. Lately, there have been a lot of questions raised regarding the use of tasers by police. To me, a taser is an alternative to deadly force: if the cop feels they have to use a gun, or if they feel that the next step will be hand to hand combat, then the taser gives them an alternative.
I stumbled across this video which gives a stop-action view of someone using the least impressive of computer tools to perform some rather impressive illustrating magic…
It is thanksgiving in the U.S., and so there the usual news items regarding how many things we have to give thanks for abound. I’m Canadian, so our thanksgiving was a few weeks ago…but our friendly neighbors to the south generate the majority of our news, so we sort of get the benefits of two holidays through a sort of osmosis. Unfortunately, I’m feeling under the weather today, and any time I have a cold or flu I end up feeling a bit sorry for myself- I wasn’t feeling any particular “thankful” vibe today.
